Under New Management, NYC-NJ Rail Tunnel Project Set to Start

A long-delayed $16B project to build a desperately needed train tunnel under the Hudson River between NYC and NJ is moving forward under new management.

A bi-state development commission create by NY and NJ in 2019 to oversee the project finally has taken control of the effort. The group, known as the Gateway Development Commission, says it expects boring for the tunnel to begin in 2024.

In addition to increasing the capacity of the rail connection between NYC and NJ for the first time in more than a century—more than 200K commuters a day use the two existing tracks under the Hudson, based on pre-pandemic statistics—the new tunnel will fend off a looming catastrophe.

When Superstorm Sandy clobbered NYC and NJ in 2012, the existing rail tunnel connection—which opened in 1910—was severely damaged. But the artery is so vital to the Metro economy that it can’t be closed for repairs until the new tunnel is completed and in operation.

In the recovery act enacted by Congress in 2009 in the wake of the financial crisis, $6B was allocated to help pay for what is now known as the Gateway tunnel—the largest single allocation in the 2009 stimulus bill, which identified the rail tunnel as the nation’s highest-priority infrastructure project.

However, the following year, NJ Gov. Chris Christie decided to pull out of the project and use $2B of the federal funding to rebuild the Pulaski Skyway, an elevated highway named after the Polish general who fought in the Revolutionary War and featured in the opening montage of The Sopranos.

NY and NJ spent much of the rest of the decade arguing over the design and cost of the project, with Christie objecting to New York’s plan to have the tunnel terminate in Herald Square in Manhattan as part of an economic development project.

Christie also demanded that NY cover a larger share of project’s cost than NJ, claiming NYC would get more benefit from the tunnel. Meanwhile, the price of the new rail tunnel more than doubled.

The rail tunnel project is set to receive about $12B in federal funding for the Gateway tunnel from last year’s infrastructure bill, including $100M that has been allocated to begin the project next year. In June, NY Gov. Kathy Hochul and NJ Gov. Phil Murphy reached an agreement to split the balance of the project’s cost on a 50-50 basis.

The tunnel, which will be owned by Amtrak, will terminate at NYC’s Penn Station. It is expected to take at least eight years to build it.

The Gateway Development Commission’s seven-member board is co-chaired by Dr. Balpreet Grewel-Virk, a VP at Hackensack Meridian Health in NJ and Alicia Glen, a former NYC deputy mayor who is now a managing principal at MSquared, an urban development think tank.

Other board members include Tony Coscia, director of AmTrak’s board; Jamey Barbos, project director of the NY Thruway Authority; Janine Bauer, a partner at the NJ law firm Szaferman Lakind; Marie Therese Dominguez, the New York State Transportation Commissioner; and Jerry Zaro, a former commissioner of the NJ Highway Authority.

If the creation of the bi-state commission was intended to distance the Gateway project from political influence, the commission probably should edit co-chair Grewel-Virk’s bio on the commission website:

“Grewel-Virk is also active on the political circuit. She has been involved in multiple campaigns, including those for Senator Cory Booker, Senator Robert Menendez and Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton,” the bio says.

New York City’s ability to undertake huge public works projects has waned significantly since the days of master builder Robert Moses, who used the Port Authority to fund the rapid buildout of the transportation and parks infrastructure of the region in the 1950s.

The precarious rail tunnel situation is a replay of what has happened during the 25 years it has taken to build a third water tunnel for NYC’s water system, which brings water down to the city from reservoirs in the Catskills—a 30-mile gravity-driven aqueduct system larger than anything built since the Roman Empire.

NYC can’t close its two existing water tunnels for desperately needed repairs until the third tunnel is completed. Mayor Michael Bloomberg made the third water tunnel a priority; the tunnel is nearing completion and expected to be fully operating by 2026.